A Darker Fable
by Bowles
Summary: We just knew everything would end up fine for us, and we would live happily ever after. Fate had other plans.


It's me again. I finally wrote this, an idea I've had for quite a while, and I'm very glad I did. I didn't have too much time today, but I did have enough time for aone-shot. Personally, this might be better than _Monument_.

Anyway, fans of _A Game of Chess_, this won't have any effect on the posting date of the next chapter, don't worry. I just wanted to write a one-shot again, and I'm planning another one soon, maybe in the coming weeks, but I'm not sure. Just look out for a fic called _As Warriors_ about our favorite djinni. And yes, it'll be angsty. You'll see how I'll make him dark. I can't wait to write it.

Without further delay...

**Disclaimer: **I do not own _The Bartimaeus Trilogy, _only the plot of this.

**A Darker Fable**

Back then, before Honorius the afrit was unleashed and my entire world came crashing down, I thought that everything was just like a storybook, a child's fairy tale. We were so clever, picking right from the pockets of the magicians, and we just knew everything would end up fine for us, and we would live happily ever after.

Fate had other plans.

We thought we were the good guys, the heroes, the protagonists, and the magicians were the evildoers who we the heroes should always thwart.

Whoever wrote this fairy tale evidently screwed up somewhere.

I was so excited, even though I was nervous. I was going to be right at the core of the magicians' collapse, along with my comrades, whom I'd begun to attach to. Before you knew it, we'd be rich and famous and everyone would want to be us. I'd be a princess, I suppose, looking for a prince.

And then, of course, just as luck would have it, Gladstone had set one final defense, his own way of saying "Got you, suckers," to any thieves attempting to plunder his treasures. He may have been brilliant, corrupt, and greedy, but he also had a fantastically sick sense of humor.

At first, right after it happened, I blamed this solely on Hopkins. It was all his fault, his and Pennyfeather's. The rest of us had no idea what we were getting into, just that it was our biggest job yet. Hell, not even they knew what we were doing, and that's exactly why everything turned out the way it did.

That's exactly why four of us died that night. That's exactly why I am who I am today.

When that afrit was unleashed, it knocked down the foundation of my entire life. Everything came crashing down, as if it had never even been there. We had been so blind, so stupid not to see this coming. It was inevitable, after all.

I think it hurt a little to have the demon, Bartimaeus, commenting about the downfall of magicians so peacefully. He was so calm talking about death and war and destruction. I wonder if I'll ever witness enough deaths so that I'm finally nullified towards them. Hopefully not. I don't really want to live five thousand years.

How couldn't we have seen this coming? It didn't take that fool Mandrake's scrying glass to tell what was going on. We were turning into the magicians, becoming just as greedy and lustful for power as they. Our own thirst blinded us, propelled us into making rash decisions. We didn't even think about the consequences; we just charged ahead and prayed that everything would end up alright.

Actually, we didn't even pray. This was a fairy tale, after all. Everything _had_ to end up okay. Or else, it just wouldn't make sense.

Well, life can be a bit puzzling at times, I suppose.

Why couldn't we see what was happening? Would it have been that hard to just open our eyes and recognize that we were doing the very thing we hated? We were so hungry to overthrow the magicians, to have it our way. Why didn't we see it?

Hindsight's always 20/20, I guess.

We were so foolish, so arrogant. I look at myself then and just think, _Wow, I was a tremendous idiot_. Actually, that thought scares me a lot. In two years will I be looking at who I am now and thinking the very same thing? Will I ever learn from my mistakes?

Who knows? Certainly not I. Maybe my life will just be one huge series of mess-ups. It's already turning out that way.

Looking back, I'm not even sure if I would change a thing. A bit ruthless, I know, but I think that may have been exactly what we needed. We needed a good shake, something to wake us up. We were so caught up in the moment that we didn't even think ahead. Everything was predestined. It was all like one of Aesop's fables. The good guys would win, and everyone would be saved.

It just happened to turn out that this was a darker fable with an ending we never saw coming.

Actually, I'm incorrect. Only a chapter of the story is over, the first act. It probably will never end: there will always be magicians and commoners and the struggle between them. It's inevitable. War will happen, big or small.

Maybe somebody will pass down the story of the generations past, the tragedies, the horrors. Maybe somebody will retell these accounts of truth in the hope that our descendants will learn from our mistakes, and everything _will _be alright, and our sacrifices won't be in vain.

Maybe somebody will pass down the tale of this darker fable.


End file.
